As Politicians Clash Over Culpability, Not Just Japan Has Failed Victims of War Atrocities

BEIJING—In the immediate aftermath of World War II, a pressing problem for the defeated Japanese authorities was how to protect the country's women from the allied occupation army—hundreds of thousands of American GIs.

The solution: ianfu, or "comfort women."

Public advertisements called for volunteer comfort women to staff a government-sponsored network of brothels known as the R.A.A.—the Recreation and Amusement...